I lie on the packed shadow-earth, staring up at the non-sky of this realm where darkness folds into itself in gradients that shouldn't exist. The others breathe with the rhythm of exhaustion—Cassius's shadows coiling protectively even in sleep, Gwenivere's child-form curled against him like trust made manifest, Atticus sprawled with vampire grace that persists even unconscious, Mortimer's scholarly posture maintained despite slumber, and Zeke...
Zeke who sleeps like a cat, one eye occasionally cracking open to scan for danger before closing again.
The purple-gold fire crackles nearby, casting shadows that move wrong—independent of their sources, reaching toward things that aren't there. In this light, everything looks like memory or prophecy, never quite present.
My chest feels tight. Not from the realm's hostility toward my Fae nature—I've grown accustomed to that particular pain. This is different. Older. A constriction that started when Gabriel mentioned the tradition of fate-reading, when he looked at me with those ancient eyes in a child's face andknewsomething I'd forgotten.
Or tried to forget.
The memory rises like bile, acidic and unwanted.
I am six years old.
Not Nikolai yet—that armor would come later. Just a little girl in ceremonial robes that itch against skin too young to understand why this matters. The throne room of the Fae Court stretches impossibly vast, crystal walls refracting light into rainbows that should be beautiful but feel like judgment.
My parents sit on their paired thrones—Mother's carved from living wood that still blooms with impossible flowers, Father's hewn from stone that hums with the heartbeat of the earth itself. They look down at me with expressions I don't yet know how to read.
Pride? Concern? Something harder to name?
The Fae Elder stands between us, and even at six, I know he is ancient beyond measure.
His hair flows like liquid moonlight, pooling around feet that don't quite touch the ground. His eyes hold the depth of every secret ever whispered in forest clearings, every promise broken under starlight. When he looks at me, I feel seen in a way that makes me want to hide.
But you don't hide from fate-reading.
It's tradition. Sacred. Necessary.
He stares into my eyes for so long that tears begin to form—not from emotion but from forgetting to blink. The silence stretches until even the air seems to hold its breath.
When he speaks, his voice carries the weight of prophecy.
"She is prosperous."
My tiny heart swells with relief. Prosperous is good. Prosperous means I haven't failed before I've begun.
"Power will flow effortlessly to her, and she's destined to bridge the gap between those of darkness."
Mother's pleased intake of breath is audible even from her throne. Father nods slowly, approval radiating from his rigid posture. This is what they wanted to hear—their daughter will matter, will forge connections that strengthen the realm.
But the Elder isn't finished.
"But not as a female."
The words fall like stones into still water, sending ripples through the throne room's perfect silence.
"She must strive to be male, or else failure and devastation are imminent otherwise."
I don't understand. My six-year-old mind can't process what he means. Boy? Girl? I'm me. Isn't that enough?
The Elder's eyes never leave mine as he continues, each word precise as a blade between ribs.
"Karma at the hands of the throne that was not meant to be in your bloodline. Tainted and cursed, you will only succeed by being the male you should have been. Not whom you are now."
Father clears his throat, the sound sharp enough to cut crystal.
"This must be a joke, yes?"
His voice carries the particular tone of royalty unused to being contradicted. The kind of voice that reshapes reality through sheer expectation of obedience.
